Group Writing. Quan, Dc, Darius, James, Rob
BMW’s appeal for car consumers to purchase their product comes in the form of a visual advertisement. This advertisement depicts a man having sexual intercourse with another woman. What is especially distinct about the woman in this BMW advertisement is that the woman has an open magazine placed over her face. The open magazine visually displays a red BMW product shrouding her face. This advertisement is attempting to appeal to male car consumers, the culture of men shows complete dominance over woman ideals in this advertisement. This advertisement portrays sex with the male on top; appearing to overpower the woman. The woman is then further degraded by the open magazine concealing her face. The man is fixated on the open magazine of a red car; this shows the man’s passionate relationship with the BMW car. This appeals to the male consumers, they also aspire to have an analogous relationship depicted in the visual advertisement; sex, cars, woman, and dominance. The overpowering words centered in the middle, “The ultimate attraction” is the main focus of this advertisement. This advertisement is specifically organized to guide the audience’s eyes towards the center of the advertisement. The Curved muscular arm guides the audience to the man’s handsome face which directs the audience towards the Car magazine covering the woman’s face. As the audience’s eyes are focused on the woman’s body, the woman’s arm is moving upward as if guiding the audience back to the center of the advertisement. Once at the center our attention is guided towards the text of the advertisement, “The ultimate attraction.”
DC, Rob, Darius, Quan, James
ReplyDeleteThis group has different versions of this, for some reason. That's not the point of a collaborative writing. Everybody's should be the same. My comments apply to DC's--DC's because his name is listed first (alphabetically) on the list of portfolios.
Though you didn't really signify the sections very clearly (why no paragraph breaks between ideas?), I'm going to give comments on the required components of the rhetorical analysis where I see them.
Introduction
Not much of one here at all. Why not? Yes it's good to get to the point, but something as abstract as analyzing argumentation strategies should ease your audience into the analysis. See other students' work and also the sample rhetorical analysis on my portfolio for how we can still get to the point quickly while also easing readers into the analysis. Recall what the intro should contain, too. I do see a summary of sorts where you say: "This advertisement depicts a man having sexual intercourse with another woman. What is especially distinct about the woman in this BMW advertisement is that the woman has an open magazine placed over her face. The open magazine visually displays a red BMW product shrouding her face." After that, it seems like an obvious section break.
Context
You cite the intended audience as "male car consumers," a culture/situation/occasion of "mail dominance, but it seems your missing the information about BMW. Yes, most audiences reading your analysis would know something about them, but not once do you really state explicitly that they are German car producer, etc, or any real history or sense of the authors here. I think more could be said about the targeted audience and also the culture/situation/occasion. More about this male dominance culture, etc.
You start talking more about the contents of the image, which could be better placed near the introduction.
Substance
You seem to be talking about the the way the image appeals to men's sense of dominance, sex, cars, women, etc. Good, but perhaps more expansion on this would help. At this point, you could consider including the image, describing more about how this appeal plays into the audience and the culture of male domination etc. In other words, show your reasoning more.
Hold off on your evaluation/recommendation section, which you hint at when you say "the woman is degraded". Yes, if that's what you want to end up arguing, go for it, but wait until later when you make recommendations to this arguer (BMW).
Organization
The organization section is quite well done, but imagine (as with most of this) how this analysis would read had you included the image somewhere. Arrows like in the presentation, etc.
Style
You include the stylistic features of the male body there, but what about the female body? What about the fact that it's a painting and not a photograph? Why did the authors go for pictorial representation rather than realism? What about the fact that they chose the hotel scene (which is a point excluded from this analysis it seems)? In other words, more could be said about this, but it is definitely on the right track.
Delivery
Not here? Why not? It didn't have to be, yes, but the other sections were so short, it didn't' make much sense why not to include delivery (media and genre), too.
Conclusion
Some good comments summing this up, but what about recommendations? You've already hinted that this was degrading, and if you feel that way, this is where you expand on that and form recommendations to BMW to rethink their visual rhetoric strategies. This is how you give this analysis significance, answering the questions some of your readers may have (and many students, too): "Why did you do this analysis?" Your answer: "So I could demonstrate how we should or should not emulate these persuasive strategies."